ICOs Have Potential for Inventors, Claims Russian Bank Official

Initial coin offerings or ICOs gained support from Russia’s central bank recently. Sergey Shvetsov feels ICOs have tremendous potential for business startup and entrepreneur funding.

The first deputy governor of the Bank of Russia, Sergey Shvetsov, claims the bank will support the advance of ICO fundraising in Russia. TASS, the Russian state news agency, reported that Shvetsov charted the investment potential that ICOs have. Shvetsov stated that companies or startups could use cryptocurrencies and exchange them for their own cryptographic tokens.

Shvetsov stated, “Our country has a tremendous potential of innovations, our students, young people and entrepreneurs have the edge over any country in the world from the viewpoint of ideas and amid the lack of classical institutions of startups support, ICO development has a huge potential to finance those ideas.”

Only a few months ago, an official affiliated with Russia’s central bank cautioned the public of the risks in participating in cryptocurrencies and ICOs.

In October, official Kremlin papers proved the thinking had shifted.

Vladimir Putin, Russian president, personally endorsed a framework to regulate ICOs and cryptocurrency mining in Russia.

Shvetsov added, “Hopefully, ICO will take a rightful place in Russia’s financial market.” He did not give any particulars about a framework.

Previously, Shvetsov firmly announced that Russia would stop access to bitcoin’s exchange websites. Shvetsov believed that that there were high risks in investing in bitcoin and that cryptocurrency was unstable for retail investors.